my favorite girl...

my neice m just turned 8 years old yesterday. 8 years old! time really does fly, man. most of you don't know this, but i witnessed the birth of my niece first hand. my sister was in chicago when she was born a month prematurely so neither my mom nor my sister's (now ex) husband made it from dhaka to chicago in time to be there for the impromptu celebration. it was just me and my sis hours before the delivery and i was scared as fuck.

so as a result of actually being there to witness this precious event, i feel exceptionally close to her. she's extra special to me. it saddens me on occasion that i really wasn't there for the majority of her childhood what with my family living in bangladesh and me being here, but thankfully i do get to see her at least once a year.

but i really can't believe that she's eight years old. i mean, i have a t-shirt of hers that she wore when she was only a month old and i can pretty much wear it on my hand!

but now that she's older, and has her own little fierce personality, she's all the more fun to talk to and tease and interrogate. so in honor of her birthday i thought i'd blog about her and let you, my readers, in on my favorite girl in the whole world. hmmm... let's see: she doesn't particularly like school, she's quite the girly girl, and she won't admit to me that her favorite color is pink. she likes hello kitty stuff, she watches dora the explorer among other shows, she scowls at the television frustratingly when blue takes forever to find his clues, and she totally digs bob marley (for which she gets extra brownie points and is thereby automatically excused for liking teeny bopper pop music of the 2000's). she eats lots of vegetables, has traveled much of the world at her tender young age, she's three quarters bengali and one quarter french which enables her to be fluent in english, bengali and french, and she absolutely adores her 18 year old half sister (who happens to be 3 quarters french and one quarter bengali) and no doubt wants to be like her. she loves silly slapstick movies like the hot chick from which she'll take any opportunity to recite some corny line or another, like "ling ling, you forgot your bling bling..." followed by incessant fits of laughter. she probably owns about 20 different pairs of shoes (thanks to my sister's fashion uber-consciousness) and loves to play with barbies. thanks to her ultra hip aunt she owns a multicultural group of barbie and ken dolls and continues to hint at me about getting her a barbie townhouse. i don't see that happening anytime soon, but shh! we won't tell her i said that.

during my last trip home we sat together on the couch on a saturday morning and watched tv. i think we were watching scooby doo or dora. but at one point she got up to get something and when she came back she literally sat on my lap, wrapped both her legs around my waist, both arms around my neck and settled her right cheek against my left cheek and proceeded to watch her show. we sat like that for several minutes and it was during that time i thought to myself, damn... there aren't too many people that would show that kind of carefree affection towards me. it was literally one of the most heart warming moments of my life.

so i ran across a birthday card the other day that made me smile at how absolutely on point the message was. it said, "having you as a niece is one my favorite things in life". and it truly is.

pimpin' my ride...?

i, deshigrrrl, non car owner by choice, became the center of attention on many streets and highways all over chicago this weekend. not because i'm beautiful, smart, charming, witty and just generally cool as fuck as some of you might jump to conclude (hehe)... but because i happened to rent a 2005 ford mustang over the weekend by sheer chance.

see, i'm a (hertz discount weekend) compact car kinda gal. i go for the cheapest car i can get. no frills, no thrills, just a fucking car that'll get me from a to b to c to z. that's it. but this past weekend i had to make a last minute reservation cuz my uncle was in town, and the 2005 mustang was the cheapest they had (and not at all bad at $25/day i might add).

so anyway, it's a nice car, as you can see. a bit flashy for my taste, and not at all something i'd ever buy for myself. but it was definitely fun to drive. the funny part was that at first, i noticed people looking in my general direction quite a bit and while my gut reaction was to stare back in a "wtf are you looking at?" kinda way, i was reminded that it was the car they were looking at, and not me. one guy pulled up next to me and said "nice car!" and i'm all "thanks!" like i own it or something. for the most part though, the oglers were straight white men and i could see them mouthing the words "that's the new mustang!" every time i passed by them.

what i didn't like about the car, however, was that it said "mustang" in big letters on the lower half of the side doors and to me, that shit is just overbearing and unnecessary. if it's such hot shit as it seems to be based on people's reactions i witnessed, why does ford feel the need to point out the obvious? if it's such a classic car that's recognizable instantly why is it even necessary? anyway. that's neither here nor there i guess, and my point is that i hate that free advertising shit. it's like, for example, buying a tommy hilfiger shirt that says TOMMY on one sleeve and HILFIGER on another in huge ass print. that's free advertising. i mean, if it's subtle, that's cool. but no need to get all obnoxious about it, you know? if i have to advertise for you then you should pay me to wear that shit... is all i'm saying. a mere symbol should suffice, in my opinion, no?

but i have nothing much else to write about so i thought i'd tell you all how popular this new mustang really is. if you're down and out and feeling neglected, rent one of these suckers for a weekend and your ego will automatically be inflated by straight white men. unless you're a non car owner like me who really doesn't give a shit about cars.

did i mention it was hella fun to drive tho? :)

32 flavors...

aah... today was a good day. the weather cooperated nicely. it wasn't hot, but it was... springy. a light jacket and you were good to go.

so i went to get my hairs cut this afternoon. iris is my girl. she cuts hair out of her house where she lives with her sweet old mom, and she's quite possibly the cookiest, craziest, funniest character i've ever known. we've become good friends and always catch up on life during the two whole hours it takes for her to cut my short ass hair. but that's the lovely part about her. she's meticulous as hell. i never walk out of there disappointed. except that one time when she accidentally shaved off half of my eyebrow.

anyway, half way through, i asked her if she ever cut hair outdoors and she said yes. so we grabbed her stuff and the chair and sat out on her sidewalk in the sun while she chopped away. it was lovely. we here at deshigrrrl.com love iris.

on another note, i've been elected (yes, actually elected) to be on the board of directors of my condo association. i already feel like it's gonna be nightmarish because i came home to 13 emails last night. 13 emails from board members trying to figure out a good time to have a meeting. good lord. there's only one lady on the board that i don't care for because she comes off very condescending. and i literally volunteered to serve on the board just to keep her in check because she just seems like the kind of person who would get carried away with the power of being on a board (fear not for deshigrrrl will save the day). the rest of the folks seem nice enough though. besides, i had to get at least one brown person in on the decision making. this is a huge investment for me. i'm not a trust fund baby. my parents didn't pitch in to help me with my downpayment. i'm not wealthy by any means. so i gotta be a part of what goes on around here. bottom line.

good god, what have i gotten myself into?

longing for summer...

less than 24 hours ago, i made a split decision to turn left instead of right as i exited the building after work. i had two hours to kill before pool league, and it was literally in the high 70's and sunny as all hell. not a cloud in the damn sky. i walked east all the way to the brink of lake shore drive... cars speeding by, the blue of lake michigan straight ahead. i found a secluded expanse of grass on a slope that literally led down to lake shore drive and decided to sit down and relax. i rolled up my pants, lay my jacket on the ground so i could lay down, turned the volume on my ipod way up and minutes later, noticing that there wasn't a soul around me, i started singing out loud. it was one of the most cathartic 2 hours i'd spent in a long time.

this morning at around 7:15am, the temperature dropped to 54 degrees. as i got off the bus to cross the street to work, it.started.pouring. the sky was so dark you'd think it was evening time. and now it's even colder outside. it's like 47 degrees or some such ridiculous formula, and windy as hell.

this schizophrenic chicago weather is killing me softly.

fuck spring, i just want summer, man... summer.

damn summer, talk to your namesake for me wouldja? tell her to hurry up and make up her mind already. ;)

sans wisdom...

did i tell you i have jacked up teeth? yes, i think i did. so last week when i came home from work and experienced some seriously throbbing pain on the right half of my gums, i wasn't so surprised. i couldn't tell the exact source of the pain, but the thing is, i popped a tylenol with codeine and it still didn't go away.

now, anyone who has taken tylenol with codeine before knows that it stops all pain. but not that night. three hours later the pain hadn't subsided, so i popped an aleve. two hours later, i desperately popped another aleve and finally managed to fall asleep.

so of course this week found me in the dentist's office and an hour later i left minus a wisdom tooth. whatever pain killer he gave me, however, was magical. i felt zero pain. that shit was so potent that the following day at work i was groggy as hell all day, and at one point literally nodded off at my desk in the midst of writing a work related email to my supervisor. i should've never hit send because that shit was all kinds of incoherent. imagine slurring via email. that's exactly how it read. i had to apologize to her later explaining my drug-induced status.

but enough of my dental woes. though i know for a fact that there's more to come. i'll be sure to keep you all posted because i know how important it is to you.

man, my life is really weird right now. i can't really explain it and it's not like i'm depressed or in a bad state or anything, but i'm just all kinds of discombobulated. there's a lot of shit i need to get done and i'm procrastinating like a mofo. i feel like good things will happen once i get these things done, but i can't seem to motivate myself to do them even though i'm dying for these good things to happen. you know what i mean? yeah... i know you do. so anyway, perhaps this weekend will be productive. perhaps it won't.

but hey, at least the weather is finally being nice to me. i work downtown, right next to millenium park, and so i had a mini-self-picnic during my lunch break today. it felt so good to sit outside without a jacket on and just relax. after i finished eating i lay out in the sun, on the grass, staring at the sky while listening to my ipod and literally dozed off at one point. unfortunately i woke up in time to get back to work.

speaking of work, i'm really diggin' my hours. i work from 7:15am to 4pm instead of 8:15am to 5pm. the earlier hour really makes a difference! i avoid all the commuter traffic jams and have longer evenings. granted, i have to get up earlier, but i don't mind it so much. eventually i think i might take advantage of the flextime and start working four 10 hour days with 3 day weekends. but 10 hour days are sure to be brutal.

the job is starting to get challenging though, which is a good thing because it keeps me busy which means the days literally fly by. before i know it, it's time to go home and that's always a lovely scenario. my coworkers are nice enough. haven't really clicked with anyone yet though, but that's quite alright with me. i can be a loner when i need to be and am perfectly content with it.

on a completely different note, and in conclusion of this pointless blog entry, for those of you who haven't heard, meshell's spirit music jamia is touring in select u.s. cities this summer. you'd be remiss not to catch one of her shows. as always, fmh has all the details. yours truly, in a manner consistent with her fanaticism, will be attending both the madison and chicago shows.